Incorporating "Friends" into Lesson Plan; First Interval Track Workout; Funny Stories

This week has been a very interesting week for classes. I have tried out a lot of new things, and both of the things that I incorporated were ideas that I fully developed within 10 minutes, which makes me feel like I am becoming more and more subconsciously prepared for school-related challanges, which is exciting :)

For Tuesday's 5th grade class, I had told my co teacher that I would prepare a powerpoint presentation with rooms in the house and then superimpose objects in each room so we can ask questions that will help them practice vocabulary. However, since this weekend was busy (I can't use that as an excuse because all of my weekends are busy) and since I was just getting over being sick and I insisted on getting a decent amount of sleep, I did not have enough time to prepare the powerpoint. So when I got to school on Tuesday, we were talking about what kind of activity we would do in place of the powerpoint (and we actually didn't have any other game planned for post-powerpoint either, other than the boring book activity), and I thought, hmm - usually playing a game that involves some kind of curiosity and mild competition bodes well with the kids - so I proposed that we incorporate the last chapter's lesson by having them ask me 'what are you doing?' And I would answer, 'I am making kimchi', or 'I am going to the second floor'. Then I would ask them, 'where am I?' And each group of 4 got a whiteboard onto which they had to write the answer. I think it went pretty well!! And I was happy that I was able to incorporate the last lesson :) But I was actually a bit surprised that I was able to come up with that on the spot. Not that I think it was an amazing activity, but for me and my experience teaching (all of about 6 weeks), I was pretty pumped :)

After class on Tuesday, we talked about the 6th grade lesson that we would teach on Wednesday. The chapter that we are doing in 6th grade is called "Will you help me please?", and the activities/games for this chapter are horrendously boring, so my co teacher asked if I had any better ideas. I hadn't thought of anything good over the weekend (or even just before Tuesday, even though we had briefly gone over this lesson the week before so that we would have time to think of better activities), so I kind of pulled this out of nowhere. I suggested that we use a scene to a movie or a tv show and have the kids first watch the scene with no sound. Then, we could have them write dialogue using some of the phrases we are studying (actually the main phrase we are studying is "will you help me please?" and the other phrases are "sure" and "of course"...seriously...this chapter needs serious help...). I thought doing something like this would give the kids more motivation to actually get involved with this chapter and to get a little bit excited about using these monotonous phrases, which would be compoundedly monotonous if the kids were just to use their picture flashcards and ask their partners "will you help me with my homework?", and have them answer "sure, of course!" (By the way I'm not sure if compoundedly is technically a word but I think it should be so I am utilizing my right of free speech :) ). Anyway, I used the scene where Ross buys a new couch and wants to get it delivered, but since the delivery charge ends up being ridiculously expensive, he decides to take it to his apartment himself. Once in his apartment building he and Rachel and Chandler are trying to get it up the staircase, and at one point the couch mangles Chandler against the railing (not really but you get the point). So I had them write two exchanges, one related to the characters actually picking up the couch and moving it (something to that extent) and then another one pertaining to Chandler's unfortunate circumstance. I thought overall everything was going decently well. The kids did get a little rowdy doing this, but they are always rowdy. However, my co teacher did express a degree of discontent towards the end of the last class; we showed the scene with sound after everyone was finished reading their dialogues (which was not something we had to do, I did not insist on that), and at one point (a point which was actually past the 20 second snippet for which we had them write dialogue) Chandler says to Ross "Shut up, shut up, SHUT UPPPPPP" because Ross is being...Ross (but don't get me wrong, I love Ross). In some of the classes, after showing this scene, the kids started to repeat "shut up", and so my co teacher said that she didn't think the exercise this was a very good idea because they weren't paying attention much in general and now they are all saying "shut up". I felt really bad about this, but I was thinking, ok, there is no way we will get them all to pay attention/contribute anyway unless we make each one of them speak individually, which would take wayyy too much time - and also we didn't have to show that part. But still, I feel bad, because if kids are going around the school now saying 'shut up' (especially to teachers..! oh no...I'm scared that that might happen...), then the teachers are going to wonder where they heard it from (not like they couldn't hear that on their own from American tv shows or anything but if they all are saying it then people will be suspicious), and if they say 'we learned it in English class! Teacher Catie taught us!' ...crapppp. Whatever. I hear some kids in Allak (I did this at Dong Sang) say 'shut up' (which I stare them down for even if they don't know what they are saying) so its not like they would be shielded from ever hearing those words. But there is nothing I can do now so I have to try and chill and just hope that the kids behave themselves. So that was my experience teaching Friends in 6th grade. Haha.

Wednesday was also my first track workout with intervals. I won't go too much into it, but it was amazing. I looooove intervals!!! Oh man. It was pretty short because Tuesday we did out week's long run, so we only ran for 30 minutes today. But we did sets of two laps, first lap easy, second lap hard. And we decreased the time for the second lap by 5 seconds for every set (or atleast that was the plan but it ended up being more sporadic than that...and actually ended up being much faster than we originally intended...:) :) ) But that was great. I am definitely a little sore today! I love it :) Although I have been sleeping through my morning workouts because I have been so tired, but that is only because I am afraid of getting sick again. If I get 8, or even 7.5 hours of sleep, then there is no way I will skip a morning workout; but it I only get 6.5 hours and I feel really tired upon waking then sometimes I can justify it...but now I'm sad because I didn't get to ride this morning... :(.

So after practice we went to eat some delicious meat and noodles, and talked about marathons. We were talking Tuesday about marathons, and I told Coach that I had never just a marathon before, and come to think of it, never a half marathon either. I have only run those distances in triathlons (although it might be misleading to say I 'ran' them because in both cases I definitely did not run the whole way, and not even close to it). So I asked him if there were any marathons or half marathons in Korea before April, and he said he would check it out. So at dinner he pulls out some information on a marathon in late January...!! Perfect!! Well, early February would probably be perfect but late January is fine too - I think I will have enough time to prepare from now until then, and then I will definitely have enough time post-marathon to recuperate before IM China. YAYYYY. My first marathon!! Especially since I plan on running the whole way in IM (or as much as I can, save the occasional feedings), it will be nice to see if I can actually run a whole marathon without walking having to deal with battle scars (or more appropriately, cardiovascular deterioration) from the pre swim-and-bike portion. And also I will have to set my time goal as faster for the marathon...so it will be a very interesting experience. Ah!! :) I love life!!!!

As for the funny stories - well, I will just grace you with one for now, because even though I don't have classes today (I am still at school but we were supposed to have a field trip today but it is raining so it is cancelled, and apparently now so are classes to-boot...:) ) I still have things to do, like lots and lots and lots of Korean... but anyway. So Coach and I were talking about resistance training, because I voiced the concern of not getting in enough strength training to keep my knees healthy for marathon training (although just to be clear that will not stop me, it is just going to keep me more busy finding ways to realize this necessity). So we are talking about muscular strength, etc, and then we start talking about water resistance, and then he adds in 'air resistance'. 'Have you ever heard of air resistance?' And he draws me a picture (I almost spit out my guk-su (noodles/soup) Just because it looked like skydiving at first and I don't know...both my imaginative visualization and the picture was quite humorous). But apparently it was someone on a bike with a TIRE rolling behind!!! He said before all of this more sophisticated resistance research and technology was developed, they used to do things like tie a car tire to the seatpost and hop on the bike and pull!! Oh mannn. Hahaha - then he said - usually we used the small car tires (I didn't understand, because small + car tire + me + riding my bike = by no means would I classify a car tire as 'small'), but occasionally we would use big truck tires...!!!! HAHAHA. I started laughing like crazy, and he was laughing harder than I have ever seen him before, so uninhibited. It was great. That must have been such a great time for him, and I can just imagine him thinking back to those days and not being able to control his reminiscence of the adventurous and unbelievably fun days that he used to have with hauling truck tires behind he and his friends on bikes. Truck tires. Oh man. Dude, those things are bigger than bikes. They could run you over from behind!!! Haha. I would pay good money to have been able to watch that.

Alright. Time to study. The next entry should be interesting because we have a long training weekend and Coach won't be there because he will be at the Asian Games in Bali. I hope you enjoyed this post, because I really enjoyed writing it!

10/20 P3: First Bike with Youth Tri Team; VP and P's visit; Korean-Italian Restaurant

Sunday, instead of waking up at 8a to go to practice at 10am, I woke up at 5:30a to get to practice by 7am, because earlier that week Coach asked me if I wanted to bike with the youth team (and of course I said yes!) Usually I get to Haeundae when the kids are coming back from their ride so it was exciting to be able to go out and ride with them instead. So there were probably...I don't know - 17-30 kids there (not counting me and the other older kids (like S and K, a parent or two, and Coach and his wife, etc - of which there was about 9 or 10), and we rode for about 100 min, about 35 km (roughly 25 miles). It was really fun, and a great feeling to be able to help out - for we were riding on a busy road so the older riders obviously are making sure that the younger kids are safe. I also met (well, not actually met, but saw and rode with) another teammate who had been injured - I actually haven't yet introduced myself to him - I will refer to him as 'J'. He seems really nice, and pretty much doesn't speak English so that will be good practice for me :). So that was a very fun day :)

On Monday after school, my Vice Principal and Principal (from Allak) came to my apartment to check things out - make sure everything was ok, and just see where I am living. They got to see that the focal part of my apartment is my bike on the trainer...haha. My principal seemed to really like it though! (He almost got on it...haha) Apparently after we got back to school my co teacher told me that they said that they want to take me out to dinner sometime soon... :) Yay.

After that, my co-teacher and I FINALLY got the online banking thing set up - it took us a while because it ended up being wayy too complicated of a process, mostly because there are so many letters in my name and since Korean names are usually 4 syllables maximum (but usually 3 or even 2), my 6-syllable last name was a little too much for the computers to handle..haha. Yea it sounds funny but it was horribly annoying to have to go to the bank like 4 different times to change things so that I could do various things. Also, later that day we went to the post office to mail my absentee ballot - that was a relief to finally send in too. My co teacher has been soooo great in helping me with all of this - it would be soooo much more difficult for me to get these things done without her!!

For my Korean lesson Monday, they decided to go to an Italian restaurant. Initially I was kind of bummed...because I love Korean food - but if nothing else it was a good experience...haha. I would eat anything on Mondays though because I am buying them dinner for helping me and so I would eat live eel if thats what they wanted to eat. But we went to an Italian place...and when I saw the menu at first I was really excited because it was in both Italian and Korean...but at a closer glance...it wasn't really Italian...it was Koralian...there were so many typos in the Italian names!! Haha. I wish I had brought my camera...I can't remember exactly what the typos were because pomodoro and caprese were spelled correctly, but there were come words that had more than one typo in t hem that I didn't even recognize and had to ask my tutors what it meant in Korean...haha. But one common typo was an 'lr' or 'rl' in place of an 'l' or an 'r' - for example, pomodoro could have been spelt 'pomodolro'. It was very very interesting. :) We focused on conversation and identifying vowel sounds for this lesson, and while my identification skills definitely improved, my listening to conversation did not progress how I would have liked... :( ugh. I really have to start immersing myself with vocabulary - thats the only way I am going to learn is just see the things written over and over and over and eventually be able to see them in my head when they are spoken. So all of my free time this week, maybe save 4 hours to spend with friends, will be studying :)

Phew. All caught up. Hopefully nothing too intensely interesting will happen this week so I won't get so behind again, but you never know with Korea...

10/20 P2: Making Bibimbap, Batting Cages and Arcade, Fireworks, First Bike with Youth Tri Team, Principal and Vice Principal's Visit...

So Thursday, since I don't have practice anymore, I decided to do something different and fun and try to make one of my favorite Korean foods - 비빔밥 (bibimbap). So my friend C and I went to Megamart and bought lots and lots of vegatables (bibimbap is basically rice, lots of vegetables, and 고추장 (gochujang - chili pepper-ish) sauce. (See above - the gochujang is the red paste in the third picture - it is served like that and then you mix it in with the rice and vegetables after) When bibimbap is served in restaurants, it looks similar to the above - you can't see the rice (it is under the vegetables), and the main characteristic of bibimbap other than vegs and rice and gochujang is the color scheme. You can have many different mixtures of vegetables, but usually there are always green, while, orange, and black vegetables, and you can choose which ones you want to use. I could go on about this night but I am still pressed for time so I am not going to :( But it was a BLAST. :) Another awesome thing about cooking this meal is that not only did I learn some new Korean words and some Korean culture, but I also learned new English words: julienne and blanch. I had heard 'julienned' before but I didn't know what it meant - and incase you didn't either, it means to cut something up into long, thin slices (like the carrots - the zucchini was cut like that too but those are harder to make out); and blanched means to drop something into boiling water for 30 seconds. Isn't that cool? I learned so much from that night. And it was SO delicious. It wasn't the BEST bibimbap I have ever had (I have had some DELICIOUS bibimbap) but it wasn't the worst either. It was very, very good - and it was SOOO much better knowing that my friend and I had made it ourselves :)

On Friday, I finally went out with my American and Canadian friends. I met them at PNU and we went to the batting cages and then to the arcade. The batting cages were actually really really fun. I was nervous at first - especially since I played baseball before and I of course felt like I should be able to perform very well, and there were lots of Koreans there watching...but I got over it and jumped inside and hit a few. Not to mention I was in heels...because I hadn't worn my heels for a very very long time and was in heel withdrawal so I decided to wear them that night (not knowing we were going to the batting cages) - and instead of taking them off in the cage, I hit some balls in my 3" heels...it was great :)

After that we went to get some icecream, and then to the arcade. The arcade in Korea is amazing. So many people are there, and everyone is so into it (much more so than in America). And there are so many kinds of games. Lots of DDR (dance, dance, revolution) although it is a little different than in the states - I can't say exactly because...it is confusing and I didn't actually play it because I didn't know what was going on...but it still looked fun. They also have guitar hero (although it is not as good as the playstation one because there are only 3 buttons, and the arcade is soo loud and many of the songs are unfamiliar so it is tough to hear any beat) and Mario cart and lots of road racing games. They also have a DJ game where you do a turn-table type thing. That is really fun. Even though I was only out for about 2.5 hours, it was a really fun night. :)

The Busan Fireworks Festival was Saturday night, so after swim practice (6:30p), I was planning to meet up with my American/Canadian friends again, at Gwangali Beach (where the fireworks were to be held). But once I got on the subway, it started to become evident that it was going to be almost impossible to find my friends (who had been at Gwangali since 1:30p since they went early and spent the day there). To make things more difficult, cell phones weren't working very well that night (texts and calls weren't going through). So I rode the subway to Gwangali, and when I got out with the thousands of other people, there were police officers directing the flow of traffic out of the subway...and I thought...nooooo wayyy. So I contacted my other friend who said he was thinking about going to watch the works from another location, and I met he and his friend at Haeundae (where I practice every weekend). We met at 8:30p at the subway and walked to Nurimaru (where we run), and from where you can see the Gwangali bridge. Once we got to Nurimaru (where there were lots and lots of people as well), there were only 5 minutes left in the festival; we thought the fireworks were from 8-10p but in actuality they ended at 8:50p. Haha. I was fine with that - I saw 5 minutes, it was good times, good works. They were a little sad (although I wasn't the limiting factor to our visual impairment because I was at the subway station waiting for them for an hour (studying so of course I didn't mind :) ) so I didn't feel bad) though because everyone loves the fireworks in Busan. But anyway. It was still a good time. After that, they wanted to go for some soju and beer. I might have joined them if it didn't take a decent amount of time to get back home on the subway due to the insane amount of people trying to get home at the same time - but also, I had to wake up at 5:30a to meet my team at 7am for a Sunday ride. So I departed from them at 9:50p (which was sad because I just met C's friend that night and he seemed really cool - and doesn't really speak English, other than a few words, so I would have been able to practice my Korean with him) to try and catch as much sleep as possible (which ended up being 5 hours...blaaah. Stupid me.)

Ok I have to go to school so more to come soon.

New Wednesday Schedule, Making Bibimbap, Batting Cages and Arcade, Fireworks, First Bike with Youth Tri Team, Principal and Vice Principal's Visit...

It took me three minutes just to type that title so I will venture a guess and say that I will not be finishing this post in one sitting (especially since I have to leave for my Korean lesson in 20 minutes...) but I thought I should at least start writing since I haven't written in 6 days. And clearly there has been a lot to write about. So I'm going to split this up into parts.

Wednesday - usually I wake up, ride my trainer for a bit, go to Dong Sang to teach, then hop on a bus and go to practice right after school at 5p. We practice, eat, and then we would go home. But we had talked about starting to study together after eating last week, and so that's exactly what we did (one thing I love about Korea too is that when people say "let's do this" they actually mean it - if I were in the States and someone had said 'let's start studying together after practice next week' there is a 50% chance that it probably wouldn't happen - at least in my experience). So we went to the library at PNU and studied quietly for about an hour. I studied Korean, Coach studied English, and S (I forget what I use to denote this man - but it is the graduate student, not the one who is my age - I will call him S2 for now), rather S2, was studying Maturity, Growth and Development (in Korean). So after an hour we went outside to discuss what we studied. Coach asked me what I was studying, and I talked about it for a bit, and he drilled me after for a few minutes. Then, he showed me what he was working on...which was a short story-type thing, but it was about me. Basically he wrote one of the sweetest things that anyone has ever written about me - not over the top though, so it was at least a little realistic :) And when he was done - (the last line was something like 'I am so thankful that I met her and that she is training with us....:) :) ) he asked me - how were my sentences? And how was my pronunciation? :) :) You know, one thing that I don't like about Korea is that it is just not realistic - how would my life ever be like this in the States? I get to train with this amazing team and have many great kids that I teach and am friends with such great people here...it is like a vacation. If I were teaching math here (I know at least one person who is an English teacher and teaches math in English...how amazing would that be!) it would be close to perfect.

I have exceeded my time allowance so I must go. Will write more soon :)